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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
As we age, our ability to hear can diminish. Of course, one does not have to be old in order to have hearing problems. As some of you know, when I was only 18, I seemed to be having trouble hearing what my friends were saying around the table in the dining room of our residence hall, but the person who checked my hearing said that my hearing was fine and that I must not have been interested in what they were saying. Indeed, who has not heard someone say something only to fail to understand what was said and so immediately ask the person, “What did you say?” In our day to day lives, bad cell‑phone connections and countless distractions are just a few of the things that keep us from hearing and understanding.
Hearing and understanding are at the center of “the Parable of the Sower” in today’s Gospel Reading from St. Matthew’s divinely‑inspired Gospel account. Sometimes called “the Parable of the Soils”, this comparative story is also given in the Gospel accounts of St. Mark and St. Luke, although today is the only time our three‑year series of readings appoints this Parable. Like other teachers before Him, Jesus, in order to reveal and to conceal Himself, often used such comparative stories, drawing on what would have been for His hearers familiar things such as sowing or casting seed. Something such as drilling oil wells might be more familiar to us, but we can be familiar enough with sowing or casting wheat or barley seed in order to hear and understand the Parable of the Sower, and so today we consider this Parable under the theme “Fruit of the Word”.
Last week’s Gospel Reading left off with the end of Matthew chapter 11, and today’s Gospel Reading picks up with the beginning of chapter 13; some fifty verses of chapter 12 come in between, even as today’s Gospel Reading itself skips over eight verses. You may recall from last week’s Gospel Reading how Jesus thanked His Father for hiding the meanings of what Jesus was saying and doing from those who thought of themselves as wise and understanding, instead revealing the meanings to little children (Matthew 11:25-30). In the in‑between verses, Jesus went on to teach elsewhere and to perform more miracles, and finally, when He was inside a house teaching, His mother and other relatives stood outside, asking to speak to Him, but Jesus said whoever does the will of His Father in heaven is His brother and sister and mother (Matthew 12:1-50). That same day, as we heard in the Gospel Reading, Jesus went out of the house, got into a boat, sat down, and, as St. Matthew tells it beginning his Third Discourse, Jesus told the great crowds gathered about Him on the beach many things in parables, beginning with this parable about a sower who went out to sow.
In this Parable, as the sower sowed, some seeds fell along the path, others on rocky ground, others among thorns, and others on good soil. When Jesus later interpreted the Parable for His disciples, He explained how the different places that the seeds were sown were different types of hearers of the Word of the Kingdom. The different places sown and their different results of the sowing (namely, being devoured, withered, choked, and fruitful) correspond to the different types of hearers and their different results of hearing (namely, being snatched, fallen away, choked, and fruitful). No doubt that Jesus had encountered such different results of hearing while teaching previously, that He encountered those different results teaching that same day, and that He continued to encounter those different results as He continued to teach. Some only heard, while others heard and understood. The verses omitted between the beginning and end of our Gospel Reading highlight the need for understanding the Word of the Kingdom that Jesus was speaking (Matthew 13:10-17).
Like all those who have ever heard the Word of the Kingdom Jesus was speaking, you and I are by nature like all of the first three groups that He describes. We have nothing in ourselves that would yield any fruit at all; our soil is too toxic, as it were. We hear, but, on our own, we lack understanding, and, even when by God’s grace we do understand, we do not always withstand persecution or outgrow such things as the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches. No matter in which of those first three groups we end up falling, the end result is the same: unfruitfulness that leads to destruction. Like Israel of the Old Testament before us, we are to hear of the Triune God, and we are to love Him with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our might (Deuteronomy 6:5-6), but we do not. The fault is in us, even as the devil and the world also lead us to sin in countless and unspeakable ways.
Yet, to us comes the Word of the Kingdom and Jesus’s enabling command: Let him who has ears hear and understand! And, such understanding includes repenting: turning in sorrow from our sin, trusting God to forgive our sin, and wanting to do better than to keep on sinning. In the verses between last week’s and this week’s Gospel Readings, Jesus strongly warned those who did not repent of their sins (Matthew 12:38-45), and so He wants us to repent of our sins and to believe the Gospel, the Word of the Kingdom. The Word of His Kingdom tells of God’s great love for us, of His sending the God-man Jesus to die on the cross and to rise from the grave in order to save us from our sins. When we repent and believe, then God forgives our sin, whatever our sin might be. The Word of His Kingdom is sown to us as seed: we hear it, and it enables us to understand: to repent and believe, and then to do the will of our Father in Heaven.
Sowing or casting seed by hand, especially on soils where the seed is unlikely to bear fruit, may not make much sense to us. With modern farming techniques in mind, we might think, “There has got to be a better way!” Yet, as Jesus then spoke the Word of the Kingdom, so does His Church today. The Word in all its forms is efficacious (that is, capable of producing and sustaining faith), even if it is not in every case ultimately effective (that is, actually producing and sustaining faith). Preaching, Baptism, Absolution, and the Supper—we can reject them at first or resist them at any time in our lives. If so, the fault is with us, not with God’s Means of Grace. A pastor’s words—preached from the pulpit, or spoken to one individual, who has privately confessed sins known and felt in the heart—water at the Font, and bread and wine from the Altar—these are the ways God gives the forgiveness of sins and so also gives life and salvation. These are the ways He brings forth from us “Fruit of the Word”, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.
As I studied today’s Gospel Reading this past week, I was surprised to learn that generally reliable Church Fathers at one time interpreted the hundredfold, sixtyfold, and thirtyfold “Fruit of the Word” as corresponding to the three different kinds of chastity: namely, to virginity, widowhood, and marriage, respectively. But, The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther called that interpretation “a coarse, worthless babbling” (AE 76:334-335). Rather, we understand that individual Christians’ fruitfulness may differ, but they will be fruitful. Christians will be fruitful in keeping with their vocations, doing the good works that God gives for them to do, which certainly includes at least trying to live sexually pure and decent lives in what they say and do, whether single, married, divorced, or widowed. And, as we heard in both today’s Epistle Reading (Romans 8:12-17) and Gospel Reading, Christians’ fruitfulness will include suffering with Christ, in order that we may also be glorified with Him.
Parables like that in today’s Gospel Reading are often pushed beyond their limits by being taken to say more than they likely are intended to say. The proper interpretation of the Parable of the Sower recognizes the description of four different types of people who hear the Word of the Kingdom, only one of which really hears and understands, but the Parable of the Sower and its interpretation do not really explain precisely why the same enabling Word of the Kingdom produces understanding in one hearer but does not produce understanding in another hearer. Either way (producing understanding or not producing understanding), as today’s Old Testament Reading described, God’s Word does go out and accomplish that which He purposes, succeeding in the thing for which He sends it (Isaiah 55:10-13). Even in those cases where an individual rejects or resists, the Word of the Kingdom is still serving its purpose, but a consequent purpose of judging those who reject or resist (John 12:47-48).
At times that Word of the Kingdom may seem to go to waste, to not be successful, but we faithfully believe, teach, and confess it as God enables us, and He produces in us the “Fruit of the Word”. Maybe a little hard of hearing, maybe not always as interested as we should be, and maybe a little distracted at times, we nevertheless do hear the Word of the Kingdom. We recognize that understanding that Word of the Kingdom is a gift of God, and we pray to always have such understanding. As Jesus said, so say I: He who has ears, let him hear.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +